8: Video clip, Avrom Sutzkever testifying at the Nuremberg trials, February 1946.

8: Video clip, Avrom Sutzkever testifying at the Nuremberg trials, February 1946.

Sutzkever was selected by the Soviet government to testify at the Nuremberg trials, one of the most important legal attempts to prosecute and punish Nazi perpetrators. While Sutzkever requested to testify in Yiddish, he was told that was not possible. Instead, he had to testify in Russian.

Suggested Activity: Watch the video as a class. Ask students to think about how Sutzkever’s testimony here is different from his poetic creation “The Lead Plates of the Rom Printers,” and also about how the two expressions of his voice are similar. Ask: Is it significant that he was not allowed to testify in Yiddish, given that he was also able to communicate in Russian? Why or why not?

Source: Avraham Sutzkever m'eid be-mishpatei Nirenberg [Avrom Sutzkever testifying at the Nuremberg Trials],” Nuremberg Trials (Nuremberg, 1946), accessed on April 29, 2019 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY4GnquFCmE. 

Original file hosted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum at https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1002254.